Dancing Through Life
by Elphie Bubble
Summary: Maureen meets Mark and her empty lot. There's nothing like some alcohol and dancing to bring people together. Rating for mild innuendo. [premoviemusical] [oneshot] R&R!


Just one of my random oneshots. Maureen meets Mark for the first time, yada, yada, yada. R&R, pleasums? does Maureen pout

**Disclaimer:** They don't belong to me...

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I adjusted my brunette curls and touched up my lipstick. I stripped off my jeans and put on a dress that was probably in violation with every school dress code in America, but New York City has no dress code. Thank God. It was a Wednesday night, and while I'm not one for schedules, it was my dancing night. I picked a club at random and had downed three and a half drinks before joining the throng on the dance floor. Several men and women were checking me out, but it was my personal hobby to get one of the silent drinkers to want to dance. Sort of a goal, if you will. Tonight I had set my sights on a very thin, pale, strawberry-blond boy with glasses, his hair gently spiked, and not much fashion sense. I could tell that he was about my age, but his overall appearance made him initially look much younger.

He had been sitting in that corner since I had walked in, moodily nursing a drink that I wasn't entirely sure wasn't apple juice. He was quite a ways from the dance floor, so when I was ready for a break, I walked over to the small booth he was sitting in.

"Mind if I join you?" I asked, flashing him a coy grin.

He took in the leg and cleavage that my dress prominently displayed, and in a schoolboy way, he made a noise very much like a gulp. Nevertheless, he nodded mutely. I sat down with him, a tad disappointed; this was going to be much too easy.

"What's your name?" I asked but he took an enormous swallow from his drink just before he tried to answer me. I waited a few moments for his coughing fit to subside and did my best not to laugh at him.

"Mark," he said when he was done, "I'm Mark."

"Well, hello, Mark. I'm Maureen," I told him.

We sat in silence for a moment. "Do you want to dance?" I asked to fill the quietness.

He choked again and after he was done, he wiped his mouth on his sleeve and looked at me incredulously.

"What?" he asked.

"Dance? You know, when you move around to music?" I asked, "For fun?" I added when he still looked incredulous.

"Dancing? No," he stuttered, "No. I don't, uh, I don't dance."

"Never?"

"Well, I know how to tango…but that's it," he muttered, flushing scarlet.

"This isn't exactly tango-ing music, but anyone can dance," I reassured him.

"Yeah, well, not me," he said firmly.

Hmm, maybe not as easy as I thought. Good, I loved a challenge. "Come on, Mark, I need someone as handsome as you to dance with."

He looked flattered but continued resisting. After several moments of this, I grabbed his arm and dragged him with me.

"My camera!" he yelped, trying to grab an old-fashioned camera that I hadn't noticed before on his seat.

"Don't worry, it won't run away," I told him, laughing.

He didn't look convinced, but I had already got him on the dance floor. I immediately launched phase two of my plan and began dancing seductively around him. Despite my best attempts, he stayed as stolid as an albino statue.

Eventually I just grabbed his hands and led him around the dance floor in a silly, crazy dance until he loosened up. He gradually began to dance along with me. He was very clumsy, something like an elephant shoved onto a tight rope or a cat that suddenly found itself in the middle of the ocean. Like the aforementioned elephant and cat, he did not look like he was having too much fun. On the contrary, he seemed terrified. Still, I had got him out there and I was going to take advantage of the fact. He just needed to have some fun, that was all.

After ten minutes of this, I was still enjoying myself quite thoroughly, but Mark obviously no longer wanted to be here.

"Um. Maureen?" he asked loudly over the music, running a hand tentatively through his hair.

"Yeah?" I asked equally as loudly.

"Can we go take a break?"

"Your place or mine?" I asked, only wanting to see what he would say. I watched in amusement as he blushed red again.

"Can we just go sit down for a while?" he finally managed.

"Sure, if that's all you want," I said with a teasing wink.

He once again blushed and I decided that I had better stop (at least for a while) before I made his face explode.

As soon as we sat down, he made sure very thoroughly that his camera was okay. I was reminded strongly of a boy with his first puppy.

I ordered us drinks and he nodded thankfully at me, still looking very out-of-breath from dancing.

"So, what's up with the camera?" I asked as I sipped from my drink.

"Oh, I'm a filmmaker," he said, patting his camera almost lovingly.

"That's cool. What kind of films do you make?"

"Not very good ones, apparently," he said with a chuckle.

I was glad that I had found a topic that he could talk to me about without being insanely nervous.

"I usually write screenplays," he continued, "and get my friends to be in them. I'm still waiting for my big break, though. Actually, I would settle for a microscopic break…"

"Could I watch some of them sometime?" I asked.

"Maybe," he said noncommittally, "So, what do _you_ do, Maureen?"

"I'm waiting on a break too, actually. I want to be an actress at some point. Maybe I could be in one of your films," I suggested.

He looked pretty intrigued with this idea. "That would be really cool," he said, "You know, I have a friend who is really close to the guy who owns the apartment buildings where I live. We get to live there for free, and there's this empty lot pretty close by that the guy also owns."

"And…?" I asked, not sure where he was going with this.

"Well, there's a small stage in it," he said with a grin.

I grinned back. "A free stage, huh?"

He nodded and I almost laughed out loud with excitement. "So, you're saying that I could use the stage in that empty lot?"

"I don't see why not," Mark told me, "It isn't like anyone ever uses it."

"Can we go there right now?" I asked, eager to see it right away.

He glanced at his watch, "Well, it's not too late yet… What the heck, let's go."

I smiled and we left the club together. As we walked along, he seemed to suddenly remember that he was alone with a girl. A full-grown woman, at that. His nervousness came back even though we weren't even walking close together. I was a bit surprised to find that his boyish ways were beginning to grow on me. After all, he was hardly my type. I told myself that I was only feeling a maternal affection for him, and I believed it.

He stopped in front of a run down building that seemed to be a canvas for beginning graffitists. I did my best to ignore the gang names and psychedelic drawings of the more taboo bits of the human anatomy.

Mark pulled open the badly rusted door with more than a little effort, eventually enlisting my help, and I got my first glimpse of the inside. My initial reaction was that it was a dump. Decades old bird poop caked everything like a layer of biological birthday cake icing and there were even a few hobos curled up under newspapers on the floor. A couple of them glared at us, but they didn't say anything.

"Now, I know that it needs some work," Mark said, obviously catching the disappointed look on my face, "But after it gets cleaned up a bit, I'm sure that--"

I cut him off with a gasp. I had just seen the stage at the end of the empty room. I had been drawn to stages my whole life, and I found that even though this one was covered with clumps of cord that had been gnawed by rats and looked as though it had been used as a convenient trash can, I could imagine it as it would look once I worked on it_. It had red velvet curtains, a polished mahogany stage, and tons of spotlights that were all focused on me where I stood, center-stage. The rich-looking audience, all sitting in comfortable red chairs that matched the curtains, applauded my latest artistic triumph wildly. I took a bow, and several of the audience members threw a combination of money and roses, just like in cartoons. I--_

"Maureen?" Mark asked, looking a little concerned.

"Huh?" I asked, thrown off my fantasy.

"You okay?"

"Yeah…" I said faintly, "I'm fine."

"Do you like it?" he asked as if seeking assurance.

My vision had subsided into the stinking mess of the real stage, but I could still smell the expensive velvet. "Mark, I love it. Thank you so much."

"No problem," he said quietly.

I turned around and looked at him. He was adjusting his glasses nervously. Without warning, I hugged him hard and kissed him on the cheek. For the umpteenth time that evening he flushed.

"Well, I--I, had better be, uh, going," he stuttered and almost tripped over his own feet in his hurry to leave.

I smiled in his wake and turned my attention back to the decrepit stage. I could once again hear the crowd cheering and I turned to leave myself. Yes, this was definitely the beginning of something good.


End file.
